\t\t\t\t\tOverview:<\/p>\n
After defeating the top-seeded Kansas City Current in the opening round of the National Women’s Soccer League playoffs, eighth-seeded Gotham FC continues its postseason march Sunday, aiming to book a second trip to the NWSL Championship in three seasons when it faces the defending champion Orlando Pride at Inter&Co Stadium.<\/p>\n
ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 After defeating the top-seeded Kansas City Current in the opening round of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League playoffs, eighth-seeded Gotham FC continues its postseason march Sunday, aiming to book a second trip to the NWSL championship game in three seasons when it faces the defending champion Orlando Pride at Inter&Co Stadium.<\/p>\n
Kickoff for the semifinal is set for 3 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN+.<\/p>\n
The winner will meet the Washington Spirit, which recorded a 2-0 home victory over the Portland Thorns on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Gotham FC head coach Juan Carlos Amoroso said that Sunday\u2019s affair would be a \u201cdifficult game, playing the champions from last year of the double the shield, the championship, in their home ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are always difficult conditions here in Orlando as well with the weather \u2013 something that we need to be fully prepared for,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a big challenge, but at the same time one that the team is prepared for. We\u2019ve worked really hard this week to make sure that we are ready to be ourselves out there and to play the game that we know we can play and hopefully get one of those tickets to go to the final. I think now Washington is confirmed to be there, so hopefully we can also secure that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be Gotham FC\u2019s third consecutive semifinal appearance \u2013 all on the road. The club earned its first semifinal victory in 2023, when Katie Stengel\u2019s extra-time winner against the Portland sent Gotham to its first NWSL championship game, where it went on to capture its first league title.<\/p>\n
Stengel delivered another vital tally in this year\u2019s playoffs, scoring the decisive goal deep into stoppage time of extra time to lift Gotham past Kansas City, 2-1, at CPKC Stadium last week. The result marked the first time an eighth seed defeated the top seed since the playoff field expanded to eight teams last eyar and handed Kansas City its first home loss of the 2025 campaign after setting NWSL records for most regular season goals, points and wins. The triumph was also Gotham\u2019s first in club history over the Current, and it set a league record as the club\u2019s third road playoff win.<\/p>\n
Jaedyn Shaw opened the scoring for Gotham midway through the second half with her first career playoff goal before Kansas City equalized in stoppage time. Stengel\u2019s 121st-minute strike \u2013 her second career extra-time playoff winner \u2013 set an NWSL record for the latest game-winning goal in postseason history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last game [against Kansas City] was a super big win,\u201d defender Lilly Reale said. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to carry that momentum [into] this game, and then figure out things that we can capitalize on and clean up. It\u2019s really just keeping that momentum going and putting our best foot forward into these playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fourth-seeded Orlando advanced with a 2-0 quarterfinal win over the Seattle Reign at Inter&Co Stadium. Haley McCutcheon put the Pride ahead in the 21st minute, and a stoppage-time penalty from Luana sealed the victory. The reigning champions enter Sunday\u2019s semifinal unbeaten in their last six matches across all competitions.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s meeting is the first postseason matchup and 28th all-time contest between the two clubs. Gotham holds the all-time series edge at 11-9-7, including an 8-4-2 record on the road against the Pride. In its most recent meeting at Inter&Co Stadium, Gotham earned a 2-0 victory behind goals from Esther Gonz\u00e1lez and Jaelin Howell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overview: After defeating the top-seeded Kansas City Current in the opening round of the National Women’s Soccer League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30946,24623,8216,31127,139,141,140,3968],"class_list":["post-48169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-gotham-fc","tag-national-womens-soccer-league","tag-nwsl","tag-nwsl-championship-game","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-pride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}